From 1945-1960, the Soviet Union was more successful in achieving its goal of spreading communism than the United states was at achieving its goal of containing it. Russia directly spread communism to China, the northern half of Korea, and all of Eastern Europe. In addition, it forced heavy expenses on the U.S. through the Berlin blockade, beat the U.S. in achieving orbital flight, embarrassed president Eisenhower with the U-2 incident, and caused wide-spread panic in the U.S. government itself. The U.S. meanwhile secured democracy in countries in which it was relatively easy to do so, and was unable to properly defend Korea or China.

Russia’s sponsorship of the communist rebellion in China led to the easy and complete victory over one of the largest countries in the world. This was a complete victory, with Chiang Kai-Shek, the opposition leader, completely pushed out of China and into Taiwan. The U.S. did not manage to contain communism whatsoever, and its assistance to Chiang Kai-Shek did not help his victory. The Korean war is yet another example of the U.S. being unable to contain communism, even with its own troops. Although the U.S. pushed the border all the up to China, Chinese troops were able to push them down until the armistice settled upon the 38th parallel as the division between North and South Korea. Finally, the Soviet Union gained communist leaders in nearly all of Eastern Europe, as well as gaining control of East Germany. This clearly shows that the goal of the Soviet Union - spreading communism - was achieved. The U.S. was only able to contain Communism in Western Europe. Western Europe had been the origin of Democratic government, and U.S. involvement in the election of Democratic leaders was small. Money was pumped into the countries via the Truman and Marshall plans, and that merely ensured victories which were probably going to turn Democratic even without intervention.

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From a militant point of view it may be said that the war was a success. General MacArthur, who was appointed by President Truman as Commander of UN forces in Korea in 1950, is said to be the one saving the war from being completely lost by the Americans. General MacArthur’s brilliant strategies, willfulness, egomania and refusal to obey orders dramatically influenced the outcome of the war in both positive and negative ways. He was the one launching the Inchon-landing, and even though the landing was full of risks because of the geographical factors, it was a major success for the US. This attack, together with the breakout of Walker’s troops forced back into the Pusan area, trapped more than half of the North Korean’s NKPA troops. However, in the months that followed with the expanding victories by the US and with the troops pushing closer and closer to China, China itself sent major numbers of troops,...

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*
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P-3
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